You covered a lot of ground we've been over before, and it looks like we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm a bit baffled with your objections to Catlady's observations.

She's not the only one who's noted the whole fund-raising aspects that are pushed into the faces of those poking about this GAHC. On your own page, one doesn't have to page down too far before the whole 'pay-pal' thing creeps into view(Complete with inscructions). There are honest and important ventures and organizations that require funds but when the appearance is of "money is the important thing with us", people begin to wonder.

My lady friend says she can always tell whether if a given church is worth visiting: where is the offerings box? If it's the first thing she see's when walking in, she walks back out.

Perhaps Catlady is getting the same vibe.

PS: Any word back on the largest deer herd controlled by birth control? Just how big is it?

Look at the wildlife killing communities lying to people to get money to help support "Conservation" (the pro-kill ones) by selling license plate with pretty pictures of wildlife instead they are killing them.

We are about saving the animals and yes we need funds for that purpose we can't do anything without it can we? Just like animals shelter needs funds , wildlife defenders needs funds, and most grass roots organization can only make it work if people donate to help support it. Look at SHARK who is helping to end pigeon shooting, rodeos, bullfighting and all kinds of horrific atrocities and they too needed donations but lucky that Bob Barker donate 1 million dollars.

PS. Has anyone answered my question as to why the hunting industry is producing deer if its about "reduction".?

Again: we've been over this, Caroline. I see no option accept to move on with the discussion: if you insist on hanging onto the same rant over and over, you may certainly do so, but please excuse me from following along. you appear to have become fixated on a particlar line of ARA dogma. I'm neverthe less hopeful you're capable of moving beyond it; for a more wide-ranging discussion.

Here's something I've been wondering about:

Do animal-predators in the wild set-off this rebound effect?

P.S: where is this other global anti-hunting forum you mentioned? Sounds like a place I'd like to check out.

It’s an interesting concept this “compensatory rebound effect.” I’ve E-mailed the columnist and editor, one I think is a wildlife biologist, of the Outdoors section of my local newspaper asking them to explain the concept; whether and how animal predators in the wild cause this effect; and if sport hunting does, and if so, can hunting be said to reduce or keep in check the deer herd and maintain quality habitat/deer. If I get an answer, shall come back and post.

In the meantime, I don’t find a definition of CRE or the concept discussed on pro-hunting and deer herd management websites. I don’t even see if nonhuman animal predation causes a rebound effect in deer. Is CRE a fact or a theory? Who coined the notion?

From some Q&As, CRE is explained as occurring when the population of deer is reduced and the remaining deer compensate by becoming more prolific by having more offspring. The term refers to a rapid or significant increase in deer after a sudden or accelerating decline, an increase to make up for the decline, but also it sounds like an increase over and above the numbers of deer before the decline produced by the hunt(s). CRE is the reproductive response of a species by which a **sudden** increase in food resources, due to a (usually) sudden decrease in the population, induces a high reproductive rate, sometimes over and above the original numbers. So, after a hunt the remaining deer benefit from enhanced food supply and so produce more deer (twins, sometimes even triplets) and reproduce at a younger age.

It is sometimes argued that CRE, in the sense of sudden population rebound or return to normal and/or above normal, properly only occurs among a deer herd that is initially unhealthy generally due to insufficient food because of really high deer numbers vis-à-vis available food resulting in an acceleration in their decline from malnutrition, starvation, disease, injury, etc., due to compromised health. So CRE really only occurs when densities of mature deer have gotten so high (because of no or very little predation by deer’s natural animal predators) and deer are becoming malnourished as a result and die off. Undernourished deer won’t give birth or give brith to fewer fawns because of the stresses they endure from unavailability of nutrition with increased deer density/competition for food, and their health becomes so compromised that they die off. As their numbers reduce, the habitat can better restore itself and then more food becomes available for the remaining deer. The healthier the deer, the more does will carry their fawns to term and more does likely to have twins, as normal, and does reproduce at a younger age as well. It seems that rebound applies only to stressed deer, maybe through wildlife mismanagement or outright ban in hunting, because deer densities are permitted to get overly high (because of no/limited predation by animals or efficient simulated predation by humans).

I’m not sure this kind of rebound effect occurs in nonhuman nature when there are sufficient predators to control deer. I see how different animal populations can bounce back: When the supply of food (animal prey or plant feed) is abundant, the more animals (predator and prey) can reproduce (the healthier the animal, the more likely it will reproduce); the less food the fewer numbers of animals. But, not sure if this is CRE in the sense of a significant increase after significant decline.

It’s obvious that between hunting seasons the deer population will bounce back. But, where is the research to show that hunting of healthy deer creates a rebound effect in the form of more deer than ever before, as implied by “AR”? It’s possible that after a season or two, surviving females might produce the number of offspring to replace those killed and some more so that the size of the herd increased from its original level. But is this reproductive rebound to the extent “AR” implies as over and above as to cause a deer population explosion, resulting in high DVAs, so many more bucks for hunters to hunt, etc. This kind of CRE wouldn’t really occur when a healthy herd is reduced. Deer densities can get high, but not to the point where deer become undernourished and sick, and then die off. So, hunting usually would kill healthy deer, the incremental healthy surplus. Healthy does will have 2, sometimes 3, offspring annually. There’s no reason why fertility rate among healthy does would significantly increase due to a reduced number of healthy deer. Their capacity to reproduce is max’d at 2 fawns, which is the norm (and sometimes triplets). Increased fertility can be genetic, too. But, the point being that, so long as a deer herd is not stressed from too few resources to sustain the population’s density, the reproductive rates are normal – generally twins – and so CRE doesn’t occur when deer numbers are reduced. Only under bad wildlife management would CRE occur, and, again, bad management does not prove hunting is a bad management tool.

Whatever, I still don’t see the problem even if hunting does cause CRE simply because keeping deer below the carrying capacity of available habitat = more high-quality habitat and increased nutrition per remaining deer = healthier does = more fawns = greater deer/buck harvest each year. So long as habitat and deer quality are maintained so deer aren’t malnourished or starving, what is the problem?

CRE doesn’t seem to prove that hunting can’t reduce or, rather, keep in check the size of rural wild deer populations. So long as habitat-deer quality are maintained. Even if the sudden, temporary reduction of hunting causes more food availability for deer who survive and increases their reproduction (‘rebound effect’), that is what happens in nonhuman nature predator-prey relationships. Rather like hunting, nature is also a ‘vicious cycle’ of killing and regeneration/rebound, where predators kill prey causing a boom in prey populations, then killing again, and so on.

Again, we’ve reduced or eliminated the predators (for our safety, not because of managed sport hunting) and we’ve dissected deer habitat and enabled deer to thrive by our own (non-hunting) land-use practices. Without animal predation, rural wild deer don’t die in the numbers and as quickly as they did by animal predation. Deer are able to live longer and die only over time; and in the meantime before they die they can cause a lot of habitat damage, affecting other critters. So, we have a choice: Letting nature take her course = fewer struggling, malnourished deer and degrading habitat that may not be able to restore itself. Or, allow annual managed hunting = healthy habitat and more healthy deer.

Now, if habitat is degraded because of deer density, but deer venture outside their habitat because of poor habitat or because sprawling human settlements, roads and parking lots destroy their resources, and then the deer are being boosted by food plots and supplemental feeding, that is a different matter. Again, you need to understand that food plots and supplemental feeding does not happen across the board. Also, states ban supplemental feeding or strongly discourage it, even where CWD has not been detected. However, my apologies for overlooking your acknowledging that supplemental feeding is banned or discouraged in some states. And, food plots won’t attract deer where surrounding habitat can already meet deer’s natural nutritional needs; its only when surrounding habitat is poor will they come, and they should not be had where deer can come into conflict with people and cars. I hardly think that food plots and supplemental feeding make a huge dent in the deer population increase. Feed plots and supplemental feeding have never been substitutes for other management tools that improve habitat, and quality deer, over larger rural areas. Again, too many deer soon will end future hunting because quantity will come at the expense of quality deer, which will reduce deer as well, then no hunting. Hunters want quality deer for quality meat, and quality racks. If hunting is all about more deer, bigger racks and good meat, why would they let deer herds explode to the point of reducing quality habitat and deer and limiting future hunting?

I may be able to agree with you regarding deer birth control for urban areas (“money and effort on Deer birth control for urban areas”). I’m glad you’re getting it: Making the distinction between urban deer and rural deer populations. Cervine birth control technology was developed and is designed to control only deer populations in urban/suburban areas where hunting is illegal and unsafe. Deer contraception is not a method to limit or end sport hunting of rural deer populations. Further on in your post, however, you regress by connecting sport hunting and IC deer birth control: “… profit from the sports hunting industry comes from whitetails they do not want to reduce the herd size in long term and that is why they reject IC deer birth control …” Caroline, Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (your source) says that to connect the idea of contraceptive control of a small number of discrete deer populations to sport hunting is “irrational.”

So, if you refer to DVAs in city and urban communities, hunting isn’t allowed in such human-dense populated areas. DVAs continue to climb because these deer populations aren’t being controlled by acute mortality. And hunting has not caused these deer to move into urban areas to cause DVAs – people who want to build homes, shopping malls and roads on once-deer habitat and also want to have cars, as well as other land-use practices, are far more the cause of DVAs in urban/suburban areas than hunters and hunting. The quote on “hunters in the woods pushing deer out of wooded areas, making them run across the road,” tell me, did hunters create those roads in rural and urban areas and all the cars? Hunters, more than anyone, are about increasing and preserving habitat for wildlife; hunters don’t want to see roads, shopping plazas and parking lots and residential development dissecting habitat. Again, no, hunting should not be held accountable for human injuries/deaths from DVA on rural or urban roads, as explained already, but which you can’t refute.

I am also sounding like a broken record. So, I will bow out from further discussion of your question of hunting “producing deer if its about reduction,” the issues (very complex and multi-factorial) of which have been answered. I’ll still follow this thread to see if anything new comes up. I’m interested in Iowanic’s question on whether animal predators in the wild set off this rebound effect. And, I’m awaiting your answer to Iowanic’s question: What is the largest herd of deer on whom deer birth control has ben used?

If I had the cash I would be spending it on animal rescue = first and foremost, my own animal rescue, secondly - animal rescue institutions who are struggling in this economic climate and if I had any extra then I would give to animal rights awareness. I rescue animals for free and out of my own pocket and cannot give more elsewhere right now.

CL

It's not "bombarding with donation" we have a very short time to do this and it's extremely important to the sake of our wildlife. There is more to it that you do not fully understand but I do. This will be a 50 state tour and we are only grass roots organization. When Jason Miller fought for the deer in Shawnee Mission Park there were funds donated but most of the money came from himself and it's not easy when one has a family. GAHC is going to be one of the most important movement and there will be media involved , papers and the whole works. We need to bring attention to the plight of our wildlife for they are constantly ignored, if I had more money I give what ever I can but I don't. Even 10 dollars from one person would add up and if every person can donate even that it would help us. You believe animal rescue and so do I but how about our wildlife who suffer and die in silence? Who are totally ignored because the government can call it "sports" and lie to the public about "reducing population" and "reducing" Deer Vehicle Accidents when that is a lie. It's not only the wildlife that suffers as millions are left wounded and crippled each year and the fact that they die a horrible suffering death but how about human death from DVA or DVC (Deer Vehicle Collision). It's because of the hunting industry that the DVA's are rising. Human death is so that wildlife serial killers aka recreational hunters can enjoy destroying life for self gratification. Think about it. A human died tragically when a deer hit his vehicle then at the same time think of a hunters posing with their murdered deer that has blood coming from the mouth, the gray eyes of death. A human dies so that another lowlife killer of wildlife can have enough deer to kill and DNR can rake it their blood money. This is not only about wildlife its about human life destroyed. I have a child that drives and I worry for him because she lives in a heavily hunted state and every deer killing I tell her to be very careful not because of deer in rut only but mainly because the deer herd is abundance produced by the hunting industry and the hunters would be in the forest spooking the deer out of their homes with shotguns and even bowhunters trampling in the forest at night.

Sports hunting is a billion dollar industry where DNR, Fish and wildlife, Fish and Game, Sportsman Alliance etc needs Whitetails for they are the top blood money maker (70% of profie comes from the whitetails ). That is why they reject deer birth control even though its here and it's proven to work yet they ignore it and mislead the public about the great benefits of Deer Contraception. That will be another area GAHC will be discussing yes GAHC is extremely important because the animals have suffered enough and so has innocent humans. Anthony Marr the founder of GAHC cares about Mother Earth , Global Warming, and all wildlife. He has been beaten by hunters because he wanted to stop bear hunting but still he continues his fight.

Understand that animals are all sentient beings that deserve to be free from and death. Its not only reserved for cats and dogs but for ALL.

We are no peta or HSUS that takes your money to benefit themselves the money goes directly into helping our wildlife and not a DIME goes for ourselves. I am one of the member and if you only knew what goes back and forth between us, the fear, the hope, the work, it's a lot and emotionally draining.

Caroline,You do not have to sell me the fact that all animals other than domestics ones deserve the right to live and should be free of harm. Yes, and I identify with "the fear, the hope, the work, it's a lot and emotionally draining." bit also.

I said that I understood the need to gather funds. What I was saying was that all those messages that I got were a bombardment whether they were intended to be or not from the source. That many new members may turn around and walk back out. There are ways to fund things - remember live aid and all that type of thing, you need high profile members who can help set you on the road - the organizational profile needs to be heightened in a good way you need PR and looking for piddly funding from members via these messages is not the answer. You must have some talented, musical folk (for example) in the member pool = call on some of these people and get local benefit gigs going, sell tickets and put out posters, collect money via that sort of thing. Get members to do jumble sales locally...perhaps, appeal to famous people in local areas, tell them what you are doing and what you want to achieve but do NOT ask for donations, just ask for some help and ideas. Try not to come over to anyone as fanatical and dont spout all the jargon - use common/normal speak. Get some cash to get that guy who wants to give speeches out there and doing it. All this last minute panic funding should be replaced by pre coordination and planning of how you are going to achieve your objective = recruit members who have skills who can volunteer the use of them.

I am not in USA so cannot help you much and I am looking into finding funding for my own project and will be speaking to local authorities and as i am a musician by profession & will be utilizing that in some way also by going around local bars who may want live music etc..

If I make enough I will give to animal causes - I always do that anyway when I can.

Just how safe is leaving comments at such places? Can you get a virus or such in return?

Yeah, you can, although I personally have never had an issue doing that on social networking sites. My problems have been with sites that automatically download undesirable crud onto your computer just by visiting them.

Caroline's myspace page is becoming more of a hoot by the day.It's gradually becoming a display-case for Marr. I suspect the donations are starting to lag a tad and they need to rally the troops.

The more I read Caroline's comments at her page, the more obvious her hatred becomes. She reminds of that fellow from Ireland we had a while back.Did she mention any thoughts on subsistence hunting? I don't recall her doing so.....

Ps: they still haven't corrected the numbers in the Kansas article....

No, I think your initial assessment is correct, my friend. There is a lot of ad hominem attacks and name calling directed against those with whom the site authors disagree ( hunters ). There is also a lot of mindless generalizations and stereotyping directed against them. If this kind of name calling and stereotyping were directed against, say, gays and lesbians or a particular racial group, it would be labeled "hate speech".The site is actually quite hilarious, though. In addition to the aforementioned ad hominem fallacies, the site is basically one big appeal to emotion fallacy. There are lots of hyper-emotional stories, quotes, pictures, etc.. But there is little in the way of actual scientific FACTS about hunting and wildlife management. It is WAY long on emotion, name-calling, fallacies, sanctimony and platitudes and WAY short on logic and facts. I believe it is purposefully designed this way. After all the easiest way to get the ignorant and the weak-minded to your cause is to appeal to the emotions rather than to rational thought ( don't you just love the "what would Jesus think" bit? ). That site is complete intellectual bankruptcy. One more thing. You will notice that the site claims the supposed unconstitutionality of hunter harassment laws. This is a bald-faced lie. Hunter harassment laws have CONSISTENTLY survived legal challenges against them. Why? Simply because it is always illegal to harass anyone involved in a lawful activity. Harassing someone who is hunting legally is no different than harassing someone who is hiking, watching a ball game, watching a movie, or eating lunch, for example.

One more thing I found laughable was the claim that coyotes are effective predators of elk. Yet another untruth. Coyotes are not big enough to be an effective predator on elk. They may take a young fawn but they don't have the size or strength to kill even most cows, let alone a bull. Not even close. Mountain lions are good predators of elk because they have the strength and body mass to kill certainly a cow, and smaller bulls. Wolves are the best predators of elk. The are much larger than coyotes and their teamwork while hunting allows them to take even big bulls. Yet more idiocy and lack of knowledge of actual biology/ecology of GAHC.

No, I think your initial assessment is correct, my friend. There is a lot of ad hominem attacks and name calling directed against those with whom the site authors disagree ( hunters ). There is also a lot of mindless generalizations and stereotyping directed against them. If this kind of name calling and stereotyping were directed against, say, gays and lesbians or a particular racial group, it would be labeled "hate speech".The site is actually quite hilarious, though. In addition to the aforementioned ad hominem fallacies, the site is basically one big appeal to emotion fallacy. There are lots of hyper-emotional stories, quotes, pictures, etc.. But there is little in the way of actual scientific FACTS about hunting and wildlife management. It is WAY long on emotion, name-calling, fallacies, sanctimony and platitudes and WAY short on logic and facts. I believe it is purposefully designed this way. After all the easiest way to get the ignorant and the weak-minded to your cause is to appeal to the emotions rather than to rational thought ( don't you just love the "what would Jesus think" bit? ). That site is complete intellectual bankruptcy. One more thing. You will notice that the site claims the supposed unconstitutionality of hunter harassment laws. This is a bald-faced lie. Hunter harassment laws have CONSISTENTLY survived legal challenges against them. Why? Simply because it is always illegal to harass anyone involved in a lawful activity. Harassing someone who is hunting legally is no different than harassing someone who is hiking, watching a ball game, watching a movie, or eating lunch, for example.

Hello Griz. I really ticked off a lot of anti hunters on another forum when I pointed out the fallacy of Antony Marr's rebound effect. He is the main proponent of this fallacy in game of anti hunting web sites today. He tried to use the fallacy in relation to deer hunting but when I pointed out that two other animals that he favors should be hunted to bring up their numbers as they are on endangered species lists in some countries his supporters had a hissy fit. If rebound effect works the way the AR supporters claim you and I should be off to hunt lions & tigers Griz. Our hunting of those critters should actually enhance their ability to thrive as a species though we took down individuals from their species. I would love to get involved in some methodology that would enhance lion & tiger, survivability. Using anti hunting logic that hunting increases species numbers we should have a very large expansion of lions & tigers in no time being such good hunters ourselves. Intellectuality & AR propaganda hardly ever coexist.

_________________I use red, not because of anger but to define my posts to catch rebuttals latter and it makes the quote feature redundent for me. The rest of you pick your own color.